Seen and heard this week
Seen and heard this week is a weekly column highlighting thought leadership from the NUS community
On 5 June, Bloomberg featured NUS Business alumnus Mr Quek Siu Rui and Carousell — the start-up he co-founded with fellow alumni Mr Lucas Ngoo from NUS Engineering and Mr Marcus Tan from NUS Business. Several years ago, the board of Carousell turned down an offer of US$100 million for their start-up; today, it is valued at about US$500 million. Already present in seven markets, Carousell plans to further develop its existing markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines, before expanding to other countries. This month, they plan to roll out CarouPay which will allow users to complete payment within the app.
Associate Professor Nitin Pangarkar from NUS Business shared his views in a Channel NewsAsia commentary on 7 June on what could be in store for consumers and drivers when Go-Jek, a ride-hailing company from Indonesia that also provides delivery services, enters the Singapore market. He opined that the threat of competition would keep prices in check and it is less likely that there would be rampant discounts for drivers and customers. He also discussed Go-Jek’s strategy options, one of them being to selectively replicate the company’s business model in Indonesia while taking into account the differences between the two countries’ environments.
In The Straits Times on 9 June, Mr N Sivasothi, Senior Lecturer at NUS Biological Sciences as well as Director of Studies and Fellow at Ridge View Residential College spoke favourably of the mitigation measures undertaken by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to minimise the impact of investigation works for the development of the Cross Island MRT Line on plants and wildlife at the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Mr Sivasothi,who was part of the discussions conducted by LTA with nature groups, also pointed out that while the measures were very detailed, they may not be sufficient as the long-term impact on wildlife would only be seen in 50 or 100 years’ time.
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